Love BSB, But Their Merchandising Partner Could Use Some Work

9/28/2013

*Sorry for the blur. Old camera+bad lighting+impatience=notsogoodpics.

Ugh. Just ugh. I'm so annoyed right now. First of all, I was having a bad day already...bad three weeks, really. Now this. I mentioned my problem with GroundCtrl in a previous post that I twice updated, but this needed a post of its own.

They send the poster and lyric sheet separately from the CD in the deluxe bundle, so you can pay for shipping twice. I knew that already and was willing to deal with it, but it's just one more thing that adds to my dissatifaction considering how long it took and the condition it arrived in. The CD itself is the standard edition, missing 3 bonus songs from two other different editions and also with a crack in the case. This version is $10 everywhere. That would come out to about $14 at Amazon if you didn't buy it with something else to get free shipping. Subtract that from $67 and you get $53 for a poster and lyric sheet. Now, don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful poster and large, so they didn't skimp on that and I won't be asking for any money back, but I'll never buy a bundle again unless it shows and describes in detail exactly what I'm getting. I took a gamble because I love BSB, and I mostly lost.

I waited two months for the rest of my order. When it arrived today, the poster was wrinkled at the edges, had a dent, and was dirty on the back. Good thing none of it should show when I frame it. Still, that pisses me off. I have ordered posters before (Fringe Benefits Project) and they came nicely packaged, costing $43 a piece with shipping. Quite a lot, but it was for a good cause and they were limited editions. It was obvious they had been careful with the Fringe poster, going so far as to roll them with sheets of paper and securely close them with paper straps so their circumference was slightly smaller than the tube and would slide out easily. The BSB poster was hard to get out, and instead of the poster tube being taped at the end, it was folded in so that anyone could open it easily and steal the contents. I have no idea if the packaging was GroundCtrl's fault or if the shipping center was another partner they had nothing to do with.

And the lyric sheet. I wasn't sure what it would be, because the site didn't say. It was quite disappointing. There were pictures of Brian, Nick, Howie, AJ, and Kevin, which was nice, but it really was just one sheet. They should have called it a mini poster. As for the lyrics, there were a few phrases. Not the full lyrics for all songs or even just one song. It was five repeating excerpts from "In a World Like This," which wasn't made clear on the site, because they didn't distinguish between the song and the album. Wow. And to say that it's handwritten is just hilarious. I expected maybe the guys had each written a song out and it would be mass reproduced. The longer it took to ship to me the more I hoped that they really would be hand-written and had been a very limited run, like what was supposed to happen with the signatures in September's Notebook. But that was far, far from what I actually got. It's a reproduction, of course, but while the writing is different for all five boys, they look like handwriting fonts. Guess I'll frame it, though. It's pretty enough.

Definitely going to buy only from my trusted sources from now on, mainly Amazon. If only the Deluxe version had come up in the dozen searches I did before purchasing then I would have. I feel very cheated. Well, I guess it an expensive lesson in not spending frivolously. Now I gotta go see if those bonus songs can be downloaded anywhere yet.

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